Chronux

Chapter 6 - "Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen..."

-~-~ Ari ~-~-

We returned to the barracks and we're met by a couple of the trainers. They were dressed in combat suits, which was different. They usually dressed in plain white and grey, the same outfit everyday.

"Suit up. We head for an enemy outpost in thirty minutes," the trainer spoke with authority. As he finished whispers swept among our squad, no one had know we were at war. We rushed to suit up, grab everything necessary. I was a mix between ecstatic energy and shock. This is what I had trained for my whole life, but who's the enemy? Never before had we heard of any war or enemy.

"Who are we fighting?" Ari sounded just as confused as I was.

"I don't know. I guess we should just go with it for now, what else can we do?" She nodded but I knew she wasn't convinced of anything. Neither was I.

As we exited the armory, we were directed to a large hanger. Inside, there were large, metallic spacecraft, which I recognized to be called "hummingbirds"(they received this name because they can move sideways and backwards just as fast as they move forward, which made them much harder to shoot down if a good pilot was behind the windshield). Each one had different color stripes along the body and engines(which hung out to the sides), and a different color nose. Orange, red, gold, purple. They were all there. As we stepped into the orange hummingbird, we were greatest by another figure in a combat suit.

"Welcome to hell," he said, sitting from one of the numerous seats in the hummingbird,"have a seat."

Naturally, everyone found a seat. I sat at the left end seat with Ari on my right.

"I guess this will be a first for you all?" the man, as it turned out be(I couldn't tell at first because he had a helmet on), stood up and leaned agains the door to the carpet. He sounded young. He removed his helmet, and I could feel the breath catch in my throat. He looked amazing. I'm sure he was no older than me, and I can't ever start to explain how he looked.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to war," he said.

"Permission to speak," Lisa spoke across from me.

"Granted," the man said back.

"Who is this enemy?" Lisa asked the question we were all wondering. For a moment silence reigned supreme.

"Invaders from a neighboring galaxy. We're scouting their forward outpost within the asteroid belt surrounding Planet H-4."

Okay, so no warning or anything? I mean, sure. Just throw us into a ship and send us somewhere. The man stepped into the cockpit and reappeared seconds later.

"Buckle up. It's going to be a long ride," he had that right.